(The Rapture and the Second Coming: Why the Bible Describes Two Different Events)

For many people beginning to study Bible prophecy, one question quickly arises:

Is the Rapture of the Church the same event as the visible return of Jesus?

At first glance, the two events may appear similar. Both concern the return of Jesus, and both involve those who belong to Him. Yet when the main biblical passages are examined together, important distinctions emerge.

The Rapture is the moment when Jesus comes to gather His Church to Himself. His visible return takes place later, when He returns openly in glory and judgment.

Understanding this distinction helps us see how the different prophetic passages fit together and, above all, reminds us of the extraordinary hope Jesus has given His Church.

Jesus Will Come for His Church

One of the clearest descriptions of the Rapture is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17.

Paul explains that the Lord Himself will descend from heaven. The dead in Jesus will rise first, and then those who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.

The location of this meeting is significant.

The passage does not describe Jesus descending to the earth to judge the nations or establish His kingdom. Instead, the members of His Church are caught up from the earth to meet Him.

Paul describes another aspect of this extraordinary event in 1 Corinthians 15:51–52.

He calls it a mystery.

Not everyone will experience physical death, but those who belong to Jesus and are part of His Church will be changed. This transformation will happen suddenly, “in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Corinthians 15:52).

Jesus Himself gave His disciples a beautiful promise in John 14:2–3. He told them that He was going to prepare a place for them and that He would come again and receive them to Himself.

The emphasis is deeply personal.

Jesus comes to receive His own.

This is the hope of the Church.

The Visible Return of Jesus Presents a Different Scene

When we turn to Revelation 19, the picture is very different.

Heaven opens, and Jesus appears openly in power and glory.

Revelation 19:11 presents Him riding a white horse, coming in righteousness to judge and make war.

This differs from the gathering described in 1 Thessalonians 4.

The world witnesses the intervention of its rightful King.

Zechariah 14:4 adds another important detail. On that day, His feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem.

Compare the two descriptions.

At the Rapture, the Church rises to meet Jesus in the air.

At His visible return, Jesus comes to the earth, and His feet stand upon the Mount of Olives.

These details reveal different stages associated with His return.

At the Rapture, Jesus Comes for His Church

The distinction becomes clearer when we consider who is moving toward whom.

At the Rapture, Jesus comes for His Church.

Those who belong to Him are caught up to meet Him.

At the visible Second Coming, Jesus returns from heaven in glory.

Revelation 19 describes the armies of heaven following Him.

Earlier in the same chapter, the Bride has already been prepared and clothed in fine linen, clean and white.

This sequence is significant.

The Church is gathered to Jesus before she later accompanies Him when He appears openly to the world.

The Rapture therefore precedes the visible Second Coming.

The Church Is Not Appointed to Wrath

Another important distinction concerns the coming judgment.

Jesus gave the church at Philadelphia a remarkable promise in Revelation 3:10. He said that because they had kept His word, He would keep them from the hour of testing that would come upon the whole world.

Paul also wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:9 that God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus.

These promises are important when placed alongside the prophetic judgments described in Revelation.

The Church is looking for Jesus, not for the outpouring of God’s wrath upon the earth.

The Rapture is therefore a source of hope for those who belong to Jesus and are part of His Church.

The Blessed Hope

Paul does not present the coming of Jesus for His Church as something Christians should dread.

Titus 2:13 describes Christians as waiting for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Likewise, after describing the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul concludes with a remarkably simple instruction:

“Comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

The teaching was intended to bring hope.

For those who belong to Jesus and are part of His Church, the expectation of His coming is meant to bring hope rather than terror.

Jesus is coming for His own.

The Two Events Have Important Differences

When the passages are considered together, the distinctions become easier to see.

At the Rapture, the Church is caught up from the earth to meet Jesus in the air.

At the visible Second Coming, Jesus descends openly, and His feet stand upon the Mount of Olives.

At the Rapture, Jesus gathers His Church to Himself.

At His visible return, He comes in power and judgment.

At the Rapture, the Church leaves the earth.

At His visible return, Jesus returns accompanied by the armies of heaven.

The Rapture occurs before the coming time of divine wrath upon the world.

The visible return occurs at the conclusion of the Tribulation and is followed by the establishment of Jesus’ kingdom.

These are not two different Saviors or two competing plans.

There is one Jesus and one glorious prophetic plan.

But Scripture reveals different events associated with His return.

Why Does This Matter?

It is possible to spend countless hours studying prophetic timelines and still miss the central message of Bible prophecy.

Prophecy ultimately points us toward Jesus.

The most important question is therefore not:

“When exactly will all these events happen?”

Nor is it:

“Who will the Antichrist be?”

The most important question is much more personal:

Do I belong to Jesus?

Knowing the chronology of Revelation cannot save anyone.

Understanding Daniel’s prophecies cannot save anyone.

Knowing every interpretation of Bible prophecy cannot save anyone.

Salvation comes through Jesus.

The Gospel at the Heart of Prophecy

The Bible teaches that humanity has been separated from God by sin.

No amount of good works, religious observance, biblical knowledge, or personal effort can erase that problem.

But God did for us what we could never do for ourselves.

Jesus died for our sins and rose again.

Through Him, forgiveness and eternal life are offered as a gift.

Romans 10:9 teaches that if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

Ephesians 2:8–9 reminds us that salvation is by grace through faith and is not the result of our works.

This is why the study of prophecy should never merely produce fascination with future events.

It should lead us toward Jesus.

Are You Ready?

The Bible does not tell us to calculate the day or hour of the Rapture.

Jesus calls us to be ready.

For the person who has never placed their trust in Jesus, the message of prophecy is an invitation to turn to Him.

For those who already belong to Jesus and are part of His Church, it is a call to remain faithful, watchful, and hopeful.

The world may change.

Nations may rise and fall.

Events may increasingly remind us that human history is moving toward the fulfillment of God’s purposes.

But the promise of Jesus remains unchanged.

He will return.

He will gather His Church.

He will ultimately return openly as King.

And one day, everything God has promised will be fulfilled.

That is why Christians can look toward the future not merely with concern about what is coming, but with confidence in who is coming.

Our hope is not ultimately in understanding every detail of prophecy.

Our hope is Jesus.

***

About the Author

Fantine is the creator of Après Enlèvement, a multilingual Christian website dedicated to making Bible teaching and Bible prophecy understandable and accessible to everyone.

The website provides hundreds of free Bible studies covering the Rapture of the Church, the return of Jesus, Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, the Tribulation, Israel in Bible prophecy, the Antichrist, the Millennium, and many other subjects related to the Bible and Christian faith.

Après Enlèvement is available in English, French, and Spanish.

https://apresenlevement.fr/

 

I do not think about the Antichrist often, and I do not want to seem as though I am glorifying him. Still, I have wondered about a few things. How does Satan go about selecting the Antichrist? Is he alive today? Does he know he is the Antichrist? If he does know, when and how did he find out? What does he hope to achieve? Does he have a long-term plan, or is it more like playing things out as they unfold? Is he like Hitler with the unsustainable four-year economic plan? Or is he like Hitler with his thousand-year Reich plan? Does he know his fate? Does he care?

The Scriptures have much to say about the antichrist. Not only is it a real person or a human condition, but it can also be a zeitgeist (spirit of the age). Not only are there antichrist(s) (little ‘a’), but also a final, literal, future Antichrist (big ‘A’) who assumes control over the entire earth. Here are the four passages (all New Testament, all from John) that use the actual term antichrist.

• [Deceptions of the Last Hour] “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18).
• “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
• “And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world” (1 John 4:3).
• [Beware of Antichrist Deceivers] “For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist” (2 John 1:7).

In a broader sense of the word (referencing both the Old and New Testaments), an antichrist is one who opposes God, His agenda, or His people. Although there are only four New Testament passages using the term antichrist (antichristos, Greek-ἀντίχριστος), Scripture affords us an abundance of clues as to the nature of the future Antichrist. He is called the worthless shepherd, little horn, man of sin, lawless one, the beast, the dragon, son of perdition, and the rider on the white horse. We are not told, however, who he is. Granted, every generation has had its favorite candidates, and up until now, they have all been wrong. We know they were wrong because all of those Roman emperors, Catholic popes, and brutal tyrants have thankfully come and gone, and yet we are still here.

Fortunately, as born-again believers, we will not be here to find out who he is when he is finally revealed. The Apostle Paul writes in his second epistle to the Thessalonians that “the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:7–8).

First, the Restrainer can be none other than God the Holy Spirit. Second, Christ must destroy the Antichrist at His coming; no other death will suffice.

Some Preliminary Discussions

Since the pre-Tribulation Rapture view is, to my knowledge, the only eschatological view that identifies the Holy Spirit as the Restrainer, critics of the pre-Tribulation Rapture view scoff at the Holy Spirit/Restrainer interpretation. The reason they scoff is that the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Godhead and, as such, is both omnipresent (everywhere at once) and will remain in the salvation business even after the Rapture.

I (as do other Pre-Trib believers) wholeheartedly agree with them.

However, let us deconstruct this passage even further.

What the phrase “taken out of the way” does not mean is that God the Holy Spirit is physically (or spiritually) removed from the earth, because that would be impossible. What it does mean is that His role will change, specifically, because the Rapture (or removal) of the Church from the earth will necessitate a change in function. For those who do not understand this idea of what changing roles means, just think back to Pentecost in Acts 2 and the giving of the Holy Spirit to those Jewish believers fifty days after the Resurrection. Keeping that in mind, ask yourself:

• Did God the Holy Spirit exist on the earth before the Pentecost in Acts 2? Yes, He did.
• Did His role change from Old Testament to New? Yes, it did.
• Can the Holy Spirit exist on the earth after the Rapture? Yes, He can.
• Will His role on the earth be different from before the Rapture? Yes, it will.

So the $64 million question will become: What will the primary role of the Holy Spirit be after the Rapture? Well, what was the primary role of the Holy Spirit before Christ came?

The Holy Spirit had many different roles over the history of the world. During creation, He was the energizer or life-giver (Gen. 1:2, 2:7). From Adam to John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit’s role included empowering select persons to accomplish specific missions (for example, Moses and David). He could fill someone from a young age (Samson) or even before birth (John the Baptist), but could also depart from people whom He once indwelt (for example, Samson and Saul). He overshadowed Mary at the Incarnation (Luke 1:35), visually descended upon Jesus at His baptism, and at the incarnation of the Church at Pentecost (Matt. 3:16, Acts 2:1-4).

However, after He was given as the Helper at Pentecost, His role in this dispensation was to permanently seal those believers into the universal, singular Body of Christ (ex. 1 Cor. 12:27, Eph. 5:23) until the day of redemption, which is the Rapture (or Harpazo). Those who have already died will receive their glorified bodies just ahead of those of us who are alive at His coming for the Church. We shall be instantaneously translated from mortal to immortal and from corruptible to incorruptible. This is in part why we groan within ourselves, awaiting our birth into glory (Romans 8:23). The groaning gets worse as the days get darker.

What changes after the Rapture is that the Holy Spirit will no longer restrain the dark forces from interacting here in the human domain. After Christ’s body (the Church) is removed fully from the earth, they will have unfettered access to our physical realm. Therefore, in strictly mechanical terms, although Christ ascended to the Father forty days after His resurrection, He still has His body (the Church) here on Earth carrying out the Great Commission. This is why I said the incarnation (putting on of flesh) of the Church. Once the Holy Spirit infilled those believers, we were not born, but began to grow and gestate much as a baby does after it is conceived. Remember what Christ said:

“And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:18–19).

First, Christ is building His Church—not the Pope, not Martin Luther, not the Southern Baptist Association, nor any other human organization. Second, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Clearly, when reading the summarized accounts of Daniel’s 70^th Week in Revelation 13, we see that authority has been given to the Antichrist to overcome the tribulation saints, so this group cannot be the Church. For two thousand years, Satan has been trying to stamp out the Church. Moreover, the more he crushes it, the more it grows. This is not the case inside the 70^th Week. This is also why God has to resort to using Angels to proclaim the gospel (Rev. 14:6), because there are so few remaining on the earth during this time.

Secondly, at present, what the Church binds on Earth means that “the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16). And since the Church has direct access to the throne of God (Heb. 4:16), the things we war against here on Earth (Eph. 6:12) not only have heavenly authorization, but divine execution on our behalf. This is what restrains Satan and his demonic forces at present from plunging the world headlong into darkness. Trust me, if Satan could have done this, he already would have.

Once the Church is physically removed from the earth, the path to salvation goes back to one similar to that of the Old Testament. Salvation is by grace through faith, yet believers (tribulation saints) are not permanently sealed by the Holy Spirit as we are now. They must maintain their faith and can lose it should they take the mark of the beast, or apostatize in some other way (Matt. 24:13, 2 Thess. 2:10-12, Rev. 12:17). In fact, the only ones specifically mentioned as being sealed by the Holy Spirit are the 144,000 Jewish male virgins, 12,000 from each tribe (Rev. 7:1-8).

It is for this reason that the book of Revelation often paints strange and bizarre images of demonic beings waging war on mankind in a visually symbolic way. We often try to relegate these images to things we understand to make sense of it all. However, the reason we cannot understand it is that for the past two thousand years, the spiritual domain has not been open to us. Once we are removed, those “bizarre images” so many have relegated to pure symbolic mumbo-jumbo will see them become reality and fill their headlines.

In summary, even though we cannot know the identity of this Antichrist this side of the Rapture, the Bible is not silent on the nature of this wicked man. My hope and prayer is that this article may serve as a warning to those left behind and perhaps persuade some to avoid him and his mark of damnation.

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